


Turn the Page

by beanarie



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Joan deserves an emotional arc, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, What-If, racebent!Kitty Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 02:26:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2605160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beanarie/pseuds/beanarie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A different take on season three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turn the Page

It’s nine months ago and Gerald Castoro is no longer the last person Joan killed. She tells no one except the MI6 agent who debriefs her. she assumes Mycroft learns about it but he never asks. She doesn’t want to talk about it. At the same time she really, really does. It’s just the way Sherlock asks after her, tentative and almost terrified, like if she told him the truth, she wouldn’t be able to handle his reaction on top of her own. She keeps it inside.

She goes back to Mycroft knowing that it’s unwise, yet he’s tall and strong and she thinks at some point he’ll bring up what happened to her and she’ll feel okay talking about it because it’ll be easier with someone who already knew. 

Suddenly Mycroft is gone, possibly forever, and she's not sure how she feels about that, exactly, but the bare walls of her empty room seem to be closing in and she knows she needs OUT. 

It’s eight months ago and now Sherlock is gone, in his place a five sentence note saying she doesn’t need him anymore. She laughs, seeing it as a dig for not confiding in him, for wanting her own space despite his plea for her to stay. She tells herself he didn’t just shatter a heart that was already broken in several places. 

It’s two months ago and Joan meets a young black woman from parts unknown named Kitty Winter. Kitty helps Joan find a key witness attached to the march cartel and then, like a stray cat once fed, refuses to leave her alone. Joan agrees to teach her to be a detective. It’s either that or get her prosecuted for stalking. 

She doesn’t mind that Kitty is an asshole. She doesn’t tell anyone that she finds Kitty’s abrasiveness comforting. Nor does she ever admit out loud that she hides behind it sometimes, allowing Kitty to go off on the occasional suspect or witness because Joan didn't have the energy. Joan asks about the way Kitty flinches when Marcus gets too close. Kitty says it’s none of her damn business. Joan doesn’t ask again. She’s not a counselor anymore. 

When their witness and her detective escort are killed right under their noses, Joan takes a brief moment to congratulate herself. She never saw the woman as anything but an annoying yet necessary part of her case. Joan didn't lose a friend, she lost a tool. But as soon as the microsecond is over, it’s rendered meaningless. Two more people are dead because Joan missed something. She very slowly begins to unravel under the guilt. 

It’s present day and she follows an anonymous tip to the poor, abandoned brownstone, and Sherlock, as it turns out. She lets him ramble, for the most part, until he says the word partnership like he didn’t throw her away like a pair of used latex gloves. She walks out, she gets a drink, and she wakes Kitty to go over the elevator schematics for the 809th time.

Sherlock decides he’s entitled to her case because of course he does. While she’s trying to investigate the lead he, irritatingly, gifted to them, he tells her about his sweeping emotional journey. His exit was all about drugs, apparently. He was afraid of relapsing, and instead of going to her about it like he’d promised, he decided that running away was the solution. "And it worked!" he proclaims. He's so proud of himself for doing what he thought he needed to do to maintain his sobriety. He clearly expects her to be proud of him as well. 

She wonders if he even once considered that he wasn't the only one having a hard time, that they could have helped each other through it. They did that before... she thinks. Maybe she was wrong about that, too. She blinks, feeling the wounds open up, determined not to let them. “Was that it?” she says. “I’ve got a lot of work to do.” She watches with satisfaction as he deflates and walks away. 

Kitty calls her to the brownstone, of all places. Joan is not shocked to learn that Sherlock ingratiated himself with her student, or that it seems to have worked. Sherlock can be very endearing when he wants to be, and he and Kitty share a lot of similarities. Joan rests her finger on the buzzer without pressing it, wondering what will be waiting at the other side of that door, if Kitty already sees how much she could learn from the legendary Sherlock Holmes, if Sherlock will start getting better at these awful attempts to make amends. 

Joan knows this for sure, at least. She’ll be strong. That’s one thing that will never change.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Story of My Life (The Old Regrets Never Die Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4248336) by [amindamazed (hophophop)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hophophop/pseuds/amindamazed)




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